randoms-random-blog-of-random - Tumblr blog

randoms-random-blog-of-random · 22 minutes ago

Text

Ecdysis

Reader x Naga!Sun & Naga!Moon

Commission Info

I'm so excited to present @crazedauthor's naga boys from their fic Coiled Around the Fine Line Between Love and Fear! They requested some TLC with Sun needing to shed, and a nervous but willing Y/N to help with the process! Enjoy!

———

The jungle heat has driven you into the cool depths of the cave Sun and Moon have made into their home, and you are content to steal a few moments without the nagas overtaking the space with the muscular coils of their bodies. It’s not often that you find yourself alone. Moon especially would have taken to the back of the cave to hunker in the dark to find some rest, but he is not here, blearily peering a red eye at you. Neither is Sun. He is quick to attend to your needs and fuss over you, but not at this moment.

Strange. You rub your arms and sit anxiously in the solitude. You’ve grown used to their presence, even if you have not settled comfortably into their nature. Snakes have never been your favorite—which is an understatement.

It is not long that splashing fills the air, and you tilt your head towards its source. There’s a watering hole, a small, clear pond not too far from the cave. Though the splashing does not echo with violence, it continues in struggling, lapping sounds against your ears.

Curiosity pricks you. Despite your better judgement, you carefully poke your head from the cave and the stirring of water grows. It wouldn’t involve your nagas, would it? Who else could it be? An answer that both terrifies and propels you, inch by inch, out of the cavern mouth and into the boiling humidity that takes the jungle by its throat.

Insects buzzes and speed past your head. You slap a hand against your neck to squish a tiny flying creature. Lush green vines hang and drape, almost catching the corner of your shoulder as you tiptoe towards the water source. A dozen possibile worse case scenarios fill your head at what is battering and swashing the water.

You come to a natural, leafy barrier between the pond and yourself, and when you dare to pull the thick frondy curtains back, you breathe out softly.

Inside of the pond, hanging at the edge of dry land, is Sun. The naga’s golden scales sparkle in their wet sheen and almost burn a molten gold in the sunlight. His tail dips deeper into the pond, and he squirms in an odd manner, his arms reaching around his body as if to scratch an itch he can’t quite reach with the wicked curve of his claws. His expression, much like his name, warms when his flower-blue eyes catch you peering at his bathing.

“Friend!” Sun’s hissing joy startles you, and you almost turn on your heels and bolt back to the cave for some sense of safety and a refuge from the heat now soaking against your body, but you blush too fiercely to think of escape. Is he bathing? Moon doesn’t seem to mind water but Sun hasn’t dipped into it as much, or at least, from what you’ve seen.

“Are you alright?” you ask, stepping into the open to brush away your embarrassment at being caught like a peeping tom. You aren’t sure if this is intrusive, but Sun rests his arms on the lush grass on the edge of the pond and looks up to you with a wide smile, even if there is a tight, uncomfortable pinch around his eyes.

“Oh, yes, I’ve never been better,” he chirps like one of the bright and dancing birds that so often search for mates among the boughs of the jungle trees. It does not keep, however, as he begins twisting his hands. His shoulders tense and squirm up and down, as if trying to wiggle out of a rather tight shirt that’s been pinching and rubbing. “Well, I could use some help, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Your stomach clenches but a niggling curiosity takes hold.

“What is it?” You take a step forward, nearing the watery edge. A slight waft of coolness from the pond entices you closer still.

Sun’s petal like adornments about his face seem to flutter slightly, his expression enticing but careful as he asks, “I’m shedding, and it is very difficult removing the old skin from my back. I could wait, but that would take some time, and it’s not very comfortable. Would you be so kind as to lend a hand?”

Shedding. Your skin crawls with the idea of removing a layer of yourself, but theirs is not human flesh, is it? Not to mention how… intimate it appears. The experience would only be one of nagas, and you’re not certain how much of that you can entertain.

You peer closer to Sun and study how soft and lighter his face and shoulders appear. Peeking just behind his back is a sheath of scales, translucent and pale yellow, now clinging to the top of his back like a caplet. He’s in the midst of removing an old, too small layer.

You gulp slightly. You wring your hands.

“I’m not sure…”

You shudder with the presence of other eyes upon you. With the awareness of a small prey animal, you snap your head to a cluster of trees overhanging a side of the pond not a few steps from where you and Sun converse. Tucked into the emerald grass, coiled tight and laying upon his folded arms, is Moon.

His red eyes glint lazily over you. A yawn stretches forth, exposing fangs before the naga settles back into his cozy position, further enshrouded by his hood-like covering. His blue scales shimmer like starlight in the shadows of the tree. It’s not often you see him outside of the cave during daylight.

He was watching you the whole time, and you almost missed him. You ignore another shudder down your spine.

“Why not have Moon help you?” It would be better that a naga help another naga, right? You wouldn’t know where to begin, even if it is… intriguing to consider such a process.

“Moon can never get Sun up in the dead of night to help with his shedding,” Moon hisses with an oily snark.

You screw up your expression at his use of third-person, but Sun lashes his tail. The water ripples violently against the edges.

“I have done no such thing, Moon,” he shrilly declares.

The blue naga’s mouth curls up at the corners in a wicked smile, so teasing and terrible, as he aims it directly at you. You’re forced to look away, fighting a creeping blush.

Taking a deep breath, you study Sun as he turns back to you. His upper body moves stiffly, caught in a vice that must be constricting. You find the line upon his chest where he started working down, the fresh, shiny new scales shimming like gold plates in the sunlight, but the old layer clings to him like dust, like decay.

You draw hands over your own arms, imagining how terrible it would be, and pluck courage from somewhere deep within you to dare venture to the water’s edge.

“I’ll see what I can do,” you say softly.

“Excellent.” Sun’s sissing joy leaps nearly out of the pond, but he moves slowly, so unlike his energetic self to present his back to you. The brilliant orange and yellow hues to his scaly spine are dulled by old scales ready to be lifted away.

Slowly, ignoring the muddy heat and the slight dampness as you sit at the pond’s lapping edge, you feel Sun’s careful gaze upon you from the corner of his eyes. His big blue gaze peers carefully, hopefully, as he gently glides himself into your reach. The back of his hips nearly bump against your knees that you must hold tight to keep from bouncing at the anxiety-inducing closeness which you now have with a shedding naga. Another stare holds heavy upon you from the darkness underneath the cluster of trees, which is more difficult to ignore.

But the first peelings of the old skin clearly hang about the middle of Sun’s shoulder blades. There, they seem to agitate and remain unpurged from his scales. The strangeness is that you can see the pattern of his overlapping scales in the old skin. The impression of the design of life. Fresh, gleaming scales wait underneath with a soft, almost polished quality to them, waiting to emerge and harden into what they are meant to be.

“What do I do?” you half-whisper.

“Carefully pull the shed down and away from my body,” he instructs, “Don’t yank, simply ease it back.”

You nod and carefully take hold of the smooth yet cold, lifeless skin. In order to not gross yourself out with too detailed an understanding of exactly what you’re doing, you begin to tug the layer down Sun’s spine.

The flesh gently gives way. You hear the slight sound of the skin separating, and you stop once in horror that you might have hurt Sun. He gives no indication save for a slight fluttering of his petal-like rays upon his head. He seems to hold his breath.

“Keep going,” he says slightly strained, “You’re doing great.”

“Are you sure?” You do not feel the same. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh no,” he says but it comes a bit rough from his throat, as if he’s dying to unsheath himself from this old form. “It feels rather wonderful, actually. Please, continue.”

At that, you realize that he is in dire need of relief, and you peel down the shed further, moving past his shoulder blades and almost midway down his back before Sun gives a deeper, rumbling sigh than you have ever heard from the naga. You nearly startle and stop. A great length of shed is now dangling from his back, and you marvel at the intrinsic back muscles lining the naga’s body. He’s lithe and shining and golden. Beautiful.

“Distracted, are we?” Moon hisses from the shadows.

You almost tear Sun’s shed in your hands from the quip, and though you burn in the face from the comment, you regain your composure enough to follow Sun’s urging to continue.

“Go a little slower,” Sun says, rising up to meet the demand of you pulling lower and lower, “Careful now. It’s best to not tear the shed. Take hold of it with both hands—yes, like that. Hold close to where the scales are separated from my body. There. That’s it… Oh, that’s wonderful.”

Sun hums a hissing, delightful sound. A great shiver overtakes the naga, and you carefully watch the shed grow in length. The once glorious layer that decorated Sun falls away, and a new, glinting and soft set emerges.

You never thought nagas could be so beautiful.

It must feel nice the further and further you go down his tail. Sun moves with you, allowing you to stay seated while gingerly peeling off the shedded scales. He works in time, going down the front of his person as you work his back, ridding himself of old and tight scales. He must feel brand new. Like he took a dazzling shower and scrubbed all of the flakes from his person.

“Why do you shed?” you ask quietly, not realizing that you now stand in the cool water up to your knees, bending over the shining middle of Sun’s long, serpentine tail.

“We do so for growth,” Sun hums, very pleased and relieved as you take several more inches of old scales from his body. “Our bodies need more room constantly, both in our environment and our scales.”

He sighs deeply, and you find yourself smiling.

“You look brand new. Like a gold bar.”

He perks up, now leaning against the pond’s edge, resting his arms against the bank while you pull the old scales from his form.

“Thank you.”

You don’t know if he knows what a gold bar is, but he seems content. There are more scales to peel and his tail is long and sleek in the pond water. Sun is good to keep still save for when he pushes his tail closer into your hands while you gently pull down and away, and move to the next section, forming a ring down the muscular thickness of his tail.

The very tip of his body wiggles slightly as you near the end, as if he can’t endure the anticipation of being entirely free from the old, worn, and tight scales.

It’s a bit hypnotizing. Perhaps you don’t have to fear so much when you have work to do with your hands. Or perhaps it might be another ability of the nagas. You don’t dare ask.

Sun didn’t ask you to go this far, but by the time you remember such a detail, you have reached the very end of his tail.

A breath leaves Sun, the naga sighing happily before he straightens. Gathering the shedded scales that now float along the surface of the pond, he gently picks the last of the old scales. You watch as his tail is born anew in the coolness of the pond. The translucent scales are gathered neatly in Sun’s hands. A whole mass that seems so much bigger until Sun disposes of the shedding on the grass. The wet layer deflated, and what once fit around the entire naga is now thin and lifeless.

Beautiful and strange. You are finding that most things are.

“Thank you,” Sun breathes.

“I’m glad I could help.” You smile shyly before waddling back to your spot on the edge of the pond. With legs blissfully cool, you sit in the sunshine and listen to the chitters of insects, and admire Sun. A serpent so unlike any being you have ever experienced.

“Brand new,” he echoes as he returns to you. His smile is wide, showing the tips of his fangs, but your heart only somersaults a little in your chest. “I do feel wonderful. I don’t suppose you humans experience anything like that?”

“Shedding? No,” you shake your head quickly, then chuckle softly. “We do regrow our skin cells, but not all at once. It happens in little flakes so small that we don’t notice most of the time.”

Sun hopes as he nears you. Holding carefully still, you watch his hand take your arm, and gently draw his tapered fingertips against your skin. Softly, he watches as white, ashy lines appear, and he muses before rubbing away the particles with his thumb.

“Fascinating.” He lifts his gaze. “It is only a shame I can’t return the favor.”

“Oh, there’s no need,” you quickly promise. “Really, you seem comfortable and happy. That’s all that matters.”

Sun’s eyes tighten slightly, but his smile doesn’t waver. Inching closer, Sun laps his arms upon your lap and rests his head. You stop breathing as the naga drapes off of your knees and into the water. There, he remains, and you cannot help but touch one of the petals upon his head with wonder.

When you lift your eyes, you find Moon’s sleepy gaze watching you. For once, he seems content to rest. Perhaps you did a well enough job of helping his brother to not earn another tease from the blue naga.

159 notes · View notes